Courage, Prayer, and Hope

Recently, at the end of a Zoom meeting with a dozen or so ministers, I was asked what parting word I would offer them. We had spent an hour in conversation about pursuing one’s mission in light of the lingering, staggering reality of the pandemic.

Such conversations are not easy ones – they present too many questions and too few answers! I felt deeply the angst of church leaders who are wrestling with the dilemma of equipping their congregation without being able to call their members together. In that moment, the best gift I could offer was centered on words and metaphors that give voice and meaning to the deep loss and uncertainty they were – and are – experiencing.

So I talked about being in unchartered territory. The pandemic is ushering us into liminal space – one that differs from the immediate past but is not yet whatever the future may eventually be. So we become pilgrims or explorers and avoid becoming wanderers or nomads. Pilgrims and explorers have purposeful goals, something larger that they seek to find as they navigate new realities.

To name the elephant in the room is important, but it is only the first step! To walk means taking more than one step. So we also explored the way that this season is an opportunity to ask questions about identity. What does it mean to be church? What is the purpose of the church? Such questions always matter, but they can easily be ignored when things are coasting along. The risk with such questions (and the reason we often don’t ask them!) is that they generate debate, imply a need for reordering priorities, and point toward a shift in our practices, all of which can easily lead to conflict. However, as we discussed in our Zoom meeting, failing to ask such questions means leaving a congregation vulnerable to rapid decline and loss of witness.

So what was my parting word to those ministers the other day? I offered three things, which I now offer to you. First, I offer the virtue of courage. Courage is the capacity to act in the face of grief, loss, and uncertainty. Second, I invite you to the practice of prayer. Prayer is the act of pausing, waiting, and listening to God. Although you and I may not have been through a pandemic before, God has. Let’s let God speak. Third, I ask you to receive the gift of hope. Hope is the earnest expectation that God will transform and restore our world. Hope is our currency – the thing that we spend daily in all our exploring and pilgrimaging.

Courage, prayer, and hope. They may not sound like much. But in the hands of Jesus’s disciples, they are enough!